this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Lets say you have a 300mi range EV. that sounds great, until you realize you can't actually use it all.
We like to save the bottom 20% for emergencies and battery longevity, and fast charging is too slow above 80% to be worth it, so effectively, on a road trip. only the 20%-80% range is usable. Your 300mi+ range just turned into 180mi of usable range. And then factor in ~10% battery degradation over time, or range reduction in winter conditions, and you could easily have as little as 150mi of actual usable range between charging stops. And that's assuming the charging stations are perfectly spaced apart.
That's only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds. And that's not along time to be driving, even for a single person. In gas cars, we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all. And if we do stop for a break, it's rarely at gas stations or places with charging stations. Those are typically awful places to spend the limited amount of time you have on a trip.
In practice, the charging interval is far, far less than the ideal 300mi and far more frequent.
Refusing to use the bottom 20% of your 300 mile pack is astonishing to me.
I understand having some buffer in case you need to divert to an alternate charging location but most people in most parts of the US don't live or travel places where charging stations are THAT far apart.
And there is no danger to battery health with driving down to 5% or lower state of charge. You're SUPPOSED to go that low on long trips. The only potential impact to battery health is if you leave it parked at a super low or super high state of charge, and even then doing so for a day or two on rare occasions is not gonna be a problem. Furthermore most EVs already lock off a small portion of the pack's range specifically for battery longetivity so unless you're in a Tesla or are under a recall or something you shouldn't worry about this so much that you refuse to use the last twenty percent
Use your whole battery! It's there for you to
Not that crazy. 20% of 300mi is ~60mi which is slightly more than when the low fuel gauge lights up on most gas cars. And most people refuel gas cars long before that light comes up, when there's ~100mi of range left. Why is such behavior suddenly so crazy when you translate that to EVs? I'll grant you that it's unnecessary in most situations, but why is being a little more cautious than others about preventing a very inconvenient situation warrant the word "astonishing"?
Only last winter I was stuck in a snow storm due to traffic and road conditions in my EV. That route took an extra 10% off my battery than calculated due to running the heater. 10% is the bare minimum margin of safety I will ever accept, and I will not feel comfortable at all having only 10% buffer.
Also consider a gas car can be refueled with a can in desperate times, allowing you to get to the next gas station. EVs have no such equivalent. Best case, you're waiting for a tow. Running out of fuel in a gas car is inconvenient. Running out of battery with an EV is devastating. Considering the difference in consequences, it is well worth the extra caution.
Where did you get the 10 % degradation from? Long time studies show way less, even with older models
https://insideevs.com/news/801624/sweden-batter-degradation-group-test/
My own vehicle. 14% battery degradation, 40% range reduction in winter
You will never get full range at cold temperatures.
Yeah, my Volt varies a bit, but after 7 years it has about 10% loss (51mi. -> 46mi.)
Range has always been less in winter, but not 40%. On a day that never gets above -4, I can still get 29mi. off the battery.
I used to think this way until I actually drove an EV long distance. This tech is mature and useful for road trips. Most people aren’t willing to drive 12+ hour days anyway and that’s the only real way to get a time advantage out of a gas car.
I think the issue is like trucks in the USA. People buy what they think they need not what they actually they need and then underutilize it.
Speaking from embarassed experience, I live in the USA thought it would be OK for me to get a pickup truck because I literally do work in the trades. Even I underutilize it tbh, and I'm thinking about selling it. I mostly just drive it to and from work like any other car, and then move things around in the company vans, lol.
You don't need it 99% of the time, but in that 1% when you need it, you really need it. 99% simply isn’t enough because that 1% is really important.
Time on a road trip is way more important than time in regular drives. I don’t mind being 30min late getting back home from work, that happens all the time from traffic, but 30min late on a roadtrip means you’re missing daylight, or an appointment, or that restaurant you really wanted to try is closed. These are not imaginary hypotheticals, all of these situations have regularly happened to me even with gas cars.
This is fascinating to read because it's completely the opposite of how I think.
If I was regularly 30 min late coming home from work I would scream. Nobody has time for that!
30 min late on vacation? Who cares? You can't even plan any trip with that tight of tolerances, anyway. Too many factors beyond your control could delay you by more than 30 minutes, easily. As you say, this type of thing can happen even with gas cars, or trains, planes, boats, bicycles, etc.
Americans don't get much vacation time. Which makes what limited vacation time we do get much more precious. Losing 30min out of 365 days is a bummer, but losing 30min out of a 7 day vacation is worse. If you have the choice of spending an extra 30min at Walmart vs spending that 30min at the beach or sleeping in at the Hotel, which would you pick? That is exactly the trade off you make when choosing between a gas car and an EV on a road trip.
Yes, but it's worse with EVs. Why would I willingly make my experience worse on a vacation?
And that 1% of the time is where renting is more effective perhaps even moreso with increasing gas costs
While that's a nice and logical thought, the fact is renting a car for a vacation adds price to the vacation and if youre already committed to a gigantic payment for a new car, renting a car for a trip is a non-starter for many people.
Not saying either is right or wrong. Everyone has to make their own value judgements for themselves.
I like my roadtrip vacations. OTOH you can also rent for your yearly holiday, but this can get pretty expensive quickly.
Oh yeah, I regularly drive 14+ hour days myself. This is why I know that most people won't, because most people act like I'm fucking crazy. Which is why I think most of them would do fine with an EV
I own an EV
I have never once paid to charge it at a charging station
If I want to go on a long trip like you suggest for a few days, I can hire a vehicle (hybrid, obvs) and still be so far ahead financially that I wouldn't notice it
You and I have very different idea of what a road trip should be like
Yeah at tail end people are spending their free time in a widely different manners
I used to believe the EV evangelists until I tried to drive EV on a road trip. I will never do it again. Why can't anybody just admit that there are real downsides which sometimes become a deal breaker?
I guess different people work differently. I'm speaking from my direct experience; I was cynical as hell until I actually tried it, and it really wasn't as bad as I expected.
Would I prefer an ICE car for a long distance road trip? Yes. Can I take an EV on a road trip and have a good time? Also yes. Was the EV cheaper than taking an ICE car an equivalent distance? Also yes.
I mean, I get it, it's not the end of the world. But given the choice, I still would never choose an EV over gas on long road trips. The difference is large enough that it matters. Trips are the time when I have the least tolerance for hassle, and even small inconveniences add up really fast.
That much driving sounds miserable
Sometimes you just have to do it
US people will only get out of their cars under threat, apparently.
Well, 3-4 hours without stopping is not only miserable, it is also unsafe.
Highway Hypnosis/ Road Hypnosis is real. In most driving manuals it's recommend to take breaks and stretch.
Also.. you can do this with most EVs already
Welcome to the US highway system.
My drive to the university from home was 152mi.
There's two kinds of people who comment on EV threads.
People who say stuff like this post, and people who actually own EVs. There is no overlap.
What a braindead take. I've owned an EV for 10 years, and this is all from first-hand experience. I will never take it on a roadtrip.
The usable range is 10%-100%. Nobody starts an EV road trip with much less than 100%. Though you may consider cutting a mid trip fast charge somewhere around 90%. Usually for me that’s because I see that I can get to my destination without going up to 100%
Charging stations will eventually be spaced at close enough distances that you don’t have to think about where to stop. In a mature EV market there’s generally many more EV chargers than gas stations along a given route.
I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped at a gas station to fast charge. I stop at roadside McDonalds (we have kids), cafes, supermarkets (last stop before a trip to a cabin), etc.
How, in this day and age, could you not be aware that fast chargers are put up in more diverse places than gas stations? They’re not stinky. They don’t need to be separate from the businesses where car drivers want to spend their time.
I’ve stopped at a fast charger at a small cafe in the middle of nowhere on the top of a mountain, you could take a wonderful hike there while your car charges. You do know you can walk away from the car while it’s charging… right?
My trip to my family cabin is around 3 hours. And the last 30min is through an actually snowy dirt road up a steep climb. And I still have 40% or so left. With skis in the roof. So get outta here with your arm chair expertise.
Incidentally I don’t have to fast charge on this trip at all since we have electricity at the cabin. Super slow but I can get at least 80% which is plenty to get back.
Anyone still bringing up winter in an EV conversation should be laughed out of the room now that Norway is at near 100% market share. And no, you can’t use “Norway is small” as an argument. Road trips are common here to start with, every other family has a cabin in the mountains. But Norway is also part of Schengen. The borders in EU/Schengen are open just like the US. The first post I saw on my EV car models Facebook group was a person planning a trip to Croatia.
That's exactly the problem. Yes you start a trip with 100%, but that only happens at most once per day. What about in the middle? You willing to sit a fucking Walmart for 1hr to get to 100%? We're not talking about a trip where you drive 3hr from home to the destination. I'm talking about road trips where you go half way across the country and do 5+hr of driving in a day, across multiple days.
5 hours of driving is nothing. This is what I'm saying, the daily time savings between gas and EV only makes a serious difference once you get to the 10-12 hours/day range, which most people are unwilling to do anyway, thus rendering it kind of a moot point.
Also, the longer distance you go, the less expensive the trip will be by EV. You don't have to remember to change your oil before you leave on a trip, and you don't have to worry about oil changes partway through very long trips.
With the EV I was road trippin in it took like 30 minutes. I would use the Walmart bathroom, buy some candy, and read a book. I survived to tell the harrowing tale. I will say, big box store bathrooms are typically much cleaner than gas station bathrooms
you don't charge to 100% every time if you don't need to. you charge up to 80% or enough to get you to the next charger, whichever is lesser. Charging from 80-100% is gonna take as long or longer than charging from 5-80% in most EVs
That's exactly what I'm saying. You go to a supercharger an you don't reach 100%, you only get to 80%. That reduces your range. Reduced range is the main problem. Only reaching 80% is a problem.
McDonald's.. the bane of every EV driver :-)
Who cares? I drive a BEV for 6 years now and charging definitely is a none issue.
Except nmc batteries have no issue with being below 20 or above 80 percent soc, they have an issue with staying outside those values for longer periods of time. That's why people say you shouldn't charge above 80% in your day to day driving, because you'll usually charge it to 100% and then just have the car parked in your driveway for hours with a full battery. When you're on a road trip, you can absolutely use the bottom 20% of your battery as you'll be charging it up immediately. You can also charge it up to 100% before starting your road trip with next to no effects on the battery for the same reasons.
So, yes, there's obviously degradation for older cars and there's the obvious effect of batteries charging slower the more charged they are, so I'll give you that you won't fully charge your car during a road (if you don't have kids, I guess, as ours will absolutely drag out the break long enough to have the car sitting at 100%), but at the end of the day, the effects aren't nearly as terrible as you describe, as you'd be at about 90% range for the first episode of the trip and about 80% for consecutive ones.
Regardless of degradation issues, I'm still not willing to go below 20% except for emergencies. One wrong exit on a long stretch of highway and you could be out of range for the next charging station. Yes, this has actually happened to me.
20% is around 100km range, depending on your battery etc. of course. I try not to arrive at a charger with no range left, but even going to the next one shouldn't ever be more than 20 km unless you live in antarctica... 100km is excessive.
Nice try, BP
Umm, there are no EVs you should be going 75mph for hours at a time in unless you want to trash your range.
Not sure if you have ever actually driven an EV, but typically in my 300mi range vehicle, I usually stop every 200 miles, roughly every 3 hours for charging, stop for 20 minutes and am back on my way. Sure, am I often a little slow than if I had gas? Yes, but that's ok, I also always arrive in my EV refreshed, have eaten, and not wore out.
This is effectively telling people in the US they shouldn't own EVs.
All the arguments are like this. You shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that. Well of course if you can avoid all the downsides EVs would be perfect, but we don't live in that perfect world in your imagination where everything works and we always do what you think we should be doing. If EVs were as good as everybody says, you wouldn't have any trouble convincing people to use them. Why can't anybody just admit that there are real downsides which in some situations become a deal breaker?
I think the downsides are going to be mitigated soon. There are cars that get 400-600 miles of range. There are also new battery materials that can be charged in 5-10 minutes. Once one of those solutions become widely available, adoption will pick up. Also, gas hitting European prices in the US of $10-$12/gallon would also make people switch damn quick.
I sure hope so. But I think the charging infrastructure is the most challenging. To deliver a (mostly) full charge in 5-10 min requires power in the megawatt range and the current electrical grid is not setup for that.
Which is exactly when you should stop because fatigue starts to kick in.
Fatigue after only two hours of driving? Okay grandma. Seriously, where I live two hours at 80mph won't get you to the state line!